On October 7, the Russian president celebrates his birthday. This year, Vladimir Putin received an unexpected congratulation from the United States. Residents of American Los Angeles (California) posted on Instagram photos and videos of how an unknown plane drew the VVP67 hashtag in the sky above Hollywood. Users believe that this was the original birthday of the president of Russia. This assumption was made in view of the fact that VVP can be deciphered as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and the number 67 is the age of the Russian president.

Pictures with the inscription in the sky VVP67, taken from different angles, users published in social networks. At the same time, one of the Californians posted a video, which shows that the message was made by a small plane circling in the sky.

As you know, this is not the only episode connecting the Russian president with aviation. Vladimir Putin not only flies as a passenger onboard number 1, but as the supreme commander in chief periodically flies in the pilot's seat in the cockpit of combat and other aircraft.

So, in October 1999, while still prime minister, Vladimir Putin flew a 10-minute flight on Su-25UB combat aircraft during a visit to the training base at the Krasnodar Higher Aviation School.

March 20, 2000 and acting as a Russian President Vladimir Putin, as the co-pilot of a supersonic Su-27UB fighter, flew from Krasnodar to Grozny, where the fire of the Chechen war had not yet gone out. During the flight, Putin flew the plane for eight minutes. Su-27UB with the Russian leader was covered by the second Su-27, which, unlike the president, was carrying combat load. A clean air corridor was provided throughout the flight route.

Vladimir Putin’s acquaintance with military aircraft continued in 2005 during a five-hour flight on the Tu-160 Pavel Taran strategic bomber, where the Supreme Commander was in command. The plane flew into the area of ​​joint exercises with the Northern Fleet, during which cruise missile launches took place. Before the flight, the president underwent pre-flight training and medical control, as well as safety and bailout instructions.

And after another 5 years - in 2010 - Vladimir Putin took a personal part in the fight against forest fires: having flown to Ryazan on a government airliner, he immediately went along the airfield to the Be-200 amphibious aircraft. Shortly after takeoff, the prime minister went into the cockpit and took the place of the second pilot. Putin spent an hour and a half in the air and controlled both the abstraction of water in the Oka River and its discharge into the burning forests in the vicinity of Ryazan.

A special place in the president’s flight biography is occupied by hang gliding. In 2012, on his way to a meeting of world leaders of APEC countries in Vladivostok, President Putin took part in a project to save crane cranes on the Yamal Peninsula. For this, the head of the Russian state flew to Salekhard, from there he reached the ornithological station “Kushevat” by helicopter. And then he made three flights at the helm of a motor hang glider, in which Siberian cranes grown in the nursery were to recognise the leader of the crane wedge and fly after him. This program was aimed at adapting captive-bred birds to habitat and seasonal migration.

Also, Vladimir Putin went on a warship, a submarine, immersed in a deep-sea vehicle, even drove Lada-Kalina. In 2018, during the opening ceremony of the Crimean bridge, the president crossed it at the wheel of a dump truck. But, since 2012, he no longer took to the sky as a pilot. Only once, at the MAKS-2019 airshow, was in the cockpit of the new MC-21 passenger aircraft during its presentation. If you follow the chronology, the president touched the aviation field about once every 5 years. Therefore, it is possible that in the next 2020 he will once again confirm his status as a leader both on land and at sea, and in the sky, and will make another flight. I would like this time in the cockpit of a domestic civilian aircraft.